1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to group entertainment, specifically the ability of an audience to create music without the need for rehearsal or special skills.
2. Description of the Related Art
Audience participation at entertainment events, such as a sporting event, concert or the like can increase enjoyment and engagement. Audiences are often encouraged to participate in various cheers, such as “Charge!” or “De-fence!” While most any member of the audience can take part in these cheers, they are not musical. On the other hand, fight songs or the National Anthem are examples of musical audience participation, but require practice to know the words and tune of the song, and thus can exclude some members of the audience.
Much audience participation is uncoordinated. For instance, when an audience claps each audience member claps at the time and tempo of his or her choosing. Thus, rather than a single coordinated clap, the result is a collection of individual claps. Another common example of uncoordinated audience participation is Thundersticks, which are long narrow balloons that are struck together to create a sound. Similar to clapping, each audience member chooses the time and tempo of when to strike the Thundersticks, rather than all striking at the same time to create a synchronized sound.
Nonetheless, some audience participation is coordinated, such as “The Wave.” This type of audience participation involves successive portions of the audience standing-up and then immediately returning to their seat in such a way as to create the visual effect of what appears to be a wave travelling through the audience. While this cheer typically does not require practice to participate, it is non-musical. Further, since “The Wave” produces the same visual effect each time, the audience knows what to expect.
A different type of participation is found in bell choirs. These are groups of musicians that create music by the timed ringing of bells, each bell coinciding with a musical note. Although each member of the choir only controls one or some of the bells, and thus only one or some of the musical notes, the ringing of the bells in time and tempo combines to create an overall musical score. Bell choirs are organized groups that often rehearse and are generally small in the number of participants. Additionally, bell choir participants have special skills, such as the ability to read sheet music in order to know when to strike their bells.